June 26, 2011

Mid-Year Refocus Part 1

Once again, the little family history corner of my living room is a mess. There are papers and books stacked haphazardly in the corner. My projects are swirling around in my mind but I haven’t put them in my OneNote notebooks! So this week, I’m going to get re-organized, re-focused and get to work!

The Hill Family – I want to thank everyone who sent me emails about the Hill Files to nowhere. I really feel energized again about this leg of my journey. I am going to Mississippi in a few days and have already called my aunt and cousin to review some of the clues I received from other family historians. Also, on my task list is to order the birth certificate for my grandfather’s sister, Dina Hill. I never ordered it because I had her death certificate. Then I thought, she is the only child that could possibly have a birth certificate filed near the time of her birth because she was born in 1919. Well after the state requirement for birth certificates! I’m giving it a shot.

The Wright Family – I haven’t explored the Wright family at all. I will continue to collect stories and set up some time to begin record searching once I get to a stopping point with the Hill family.

Rosie Sampson – The mysterious matriarch of the Hill family. I have the List of Educable Children for Oktibbeha County which lists a Rosie Sampson with parent/guardian Neal? Sampson. A definite next step is to locate Neal Sampson in the census. I am waiting for FHL film for marriage records. I believe that she married Otis Ratley/Ratliff in 1919 or 1920.

My goal for today is organize this information in my virtual notebooks and set up my task lists and not to get off track! I’m paying my daughters 50 cents per hour to file and catalog items so we should be able to accomplish this today.